A French Agricultural Village.—Close to the Garonne, upon the right hand, I came upon one of the most strange old-fashioned, purely agricultural villages I ever saw. Although hardly covering an acre, it was a regular walled town. You entered by crumbling gateways, surmounted by crumbling towers, and found in the interior two or three broad streets of cottages, running right across the square formed by the whole place. A fortification by Vuaban could not, have been more prim or regular. But the whole place had a most ancient and unrepaired aspect, mouldering and crumbling away. Down the centre of each street ran a longridge of dung-hills. Beneath the roof of each cottage was a species of open garret, protected by far spreading eaves, and serving as a store place for Indian corn. Women and children were beating with switches, instead of flails, heaps of the miserable stuff known as sarrasin, or black wheat; while on the church door-steps a large party was clustered, clearing the husks from'maize. I asked an old man sitting by a doorway the name of his place of habitation. He was out of all sight the most humble individual I ever met with. The village, ah !it was a poor place, quite an obscure place. He wondered how I had found it out. They seldom saw strangers there. A very poor piace. " But the name/ Well, certainly it had a name. A poor sort of name, indeed, as insignificant as the place. He would certainly tell me it; but the fact was, that after he had done so, it would not be worth remembering. The depreciated name of this depreciated village was Valentine. —Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.
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Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 93, 16 October 1852, Page 9
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282Untitled Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 93, 16 October 1852, Page 9
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